1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a cooking apparatus and, more particularly, to an apparatus for cooking bacon strips and including a disposable rack for receiving such strips and for maintaining same at a substantially corrugated pattern during the cooking process.
2. Prior Art
Microwave ovens are useful for, among other things, cooking small amounts of food quickly. A microwave oven has a cavity therein, with a tray or a shelf for placing food thereon. The oven has a door for allowing access to the interior.
When the oven is in use, the cavity is irradiated by electromagnetic energy. As the food is irradiated, it heats up and splatters if not covered. Splattering is particularly a problem with greasy foods such as bacon. In addition to splattering, bacon produces large amounts of hot grease that pools around the bacon. In order to prevent the bacon from “swimming” in the hot grease, one prior art method of cooking bacon utilizes sheets of paper towel located above and below the bacon. The paper towel absorbs the grease from the bacon. After cooking, the grease-sodden paper towel must be disposed of. This poses some degree of danger because the hot grease is exposed to the touch, wherein a cook handling the plate and paper towel can be easily burned. In addition, this prior art method is messy because the plate must be cleaned of grease after using.
Furthermore, as strips of bacon are cooked, the bacon has a tendency to shrink in size, to curl and to soak up a considerable amount of the grease in which it is being cooked and which is produced by the bacon itself during cooking. Additionally, if several pieces of bacon are cooked together, there is a tendency for the pieces to cling together if not kept separate. The use of microwave ovens has considerably decreased the amount of time needed to cook food such as bacon, but has done little to overcome the problems of shrinkage, curling and sticking together.
Cooking racks or trays such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,933,528 and 4,650,085 to Barr and Chen, respectively, disclose the concept of separating items of food during the cooking or cooling of the items. However, these conventional racks do not address the problems of shrinkage or absorption of grease.
Accordingly, there remains a need to provide a cooking apparatus including a disposable rack for receiving such bacon strips and for maintaining same at a substantially corrugated pattern during the cooking process.